Biblical Kindness Moves. It Acts. An Illustration

Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness and understanding you can muster,and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again.

Og Mandino

Part of my work with my church and with managing leaderhelps.com is the creation of 9-10-week Bible studies for small groups. You’ll find them here if you’re interested.

In developing the small group study on Relationships, which so far is the most downloaded, I encountered an interesting Greek word in a very well known text.

The Scripture is 1 Corinthians 13:4 Love is patient. Love is kind. Love isn’t jealous. It doesn’t sing its own praises. It isn’t arrogant. As I did, I zeroed in on that word “kind” particularly its Greek foundation: χρηστεύομαι (chrēsteuomai). It’s one of those words with rare New Testament usage, which always gets my attention. It wasn’t a word that the Apostle Paul pulled out and used over and over. This was a special use.

The sense of the word isn’t just “nice” or “pleasant” in a passive or lukewarm sense, but is active – to show oneself to be kind, to use graciousness. Kindness in a 1 Corinthians 13 sense takes the lead, searches out opportunities to love, to apply kindness. Biblical kindness keeps its eyes open. In short, you cannot be kind in the first Corinthians model without doing something, taking initiative, acting, sacrificing. Kindness is always on the lookout, searching for its next smile.

The story below, with thanks as always to Steve Hartman, has it about right I think.